XII

Thou Heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then

In ominous eclipse? a thousand years

Bred from the slime of deep Oppression's den.

Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears.

Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away;

How like Bacchanals of blood

Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood

Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood!

When one, like them, but mightier far than they.

The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers,

Rose: armies mingled in obscure array,

Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers

Of serene Heaven. He, by the past pursued,

Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours,

Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers.